Ah House is on Far

It was late August when the fire happened, during laid back days of summer. It was the year of Rock and Roll, Bandstand, and Elvis, 1958, Pueblo, Colorado, steel city USA. I was thirteen, Chance fifteen, and we’d palled around for a couple of years. His nickname was “Beaver” as he was short, chubby, and his large two front teeth looked like a beavers. Chance and I tried to cram as much activity as we could before school started in September. We spent the days fishing the muddy banks of Mennequa Lake, catching catfish, with minnows, then throwing them back, as they aren’t fit to eat, being bottom fish scavengers, tasting like mud. The rest of the days, afternoon movies, going to the park, or just hanging out with neighborhood kids.

I spent most evenings at Chance’s house as my mom worked nights and my step-father was a cook, working the late shift at the Stanley Hotel. Jess and Sylvia Baker became like second parents. Jess was short, half Missouri Indian, with black curly hair, and strong muscular arms. Sylvia, a petite dark haired woman, who could cook up the best fried chicken, mashed ’taters & gravy, and the most scrumptious rhubarb pie, always insisted I eat supper with them, with no argument from me.

During warm summer evenings we’d sit in the side yard next to their trash barrel, in a circle around a old galvanized wash tub they used for a camp fire, bucket of water handy just in case, talking, and throwing cedar wood on to keep the fire going. D.B. Brown and family from next door would come over and join us. The events of the day, or yarns would be told. Jess, would tell a few good ones, and wink to let you know it might not be the whole truth. Sylvia, called them fabrications The fire would shoot skyward and yellow tipped, blue flames would dance, casting flashing shadows on faces. “’Member when ol’ Bradley stepped on the gofer snake an’ almost messed his pants?” someone would say, and everyone would laugh at the memory. “Well, that’s not as funny as…” and another tale would begin.

One night I asked, “D. B., wuz you in the war?”

“Yep,” He answered,” I wuz , in 19 an’42. in’a Pacific. Them jap’s wuz meaner’n a bitin’ boa. Had us‘a penned down on a beach fer long time. But we‘ans finally beat‘um.”

"What rank was ya, Brownie?”, Chance asked.

“Lootenant.”

Sylvia, spoke up. “Did’ja get wounded?”

D.B. poked the fire with a big stick, red sparks danced into the night air. “Yess’um, see this here scar,” and pointed to a white line from his ear to his
adam’s apple. “Bayonet.”

“Yer a real hero, D.B..” Jessie said getting up and stretching, “’Bout time to go in, getting’ late.”
“Kin we stay out a little longer, dad?” Chance asked.
“A little while,” Jess said as the grownups headed inside.
While stirring the fire with a old broom handle I said, “Boy, old D.B. got bayoneted in the war. I jus’ can’t see him given directions’ to anybody. He said he was a lieutenant.”

“Aw, Brownie’s a B.S.er. I don’t believe him. He kin really color up a story.”

The Brown’s lived in a dilapidated wood framed house on the corner of Orchard Street. The roof of shingled rotting redwood had a distinctive sag near the arch by the old brick chimney. Small Isles of tall grass doted the brown dirt in the unkempt front yard. In the back yard was the resting place of an old 1932 Packard, on blocks; a 1949 dusty, brown Chevrolet coupe, with it‘s hood saluting; and various motor parts, scattered here and yonder in the dirt. In the back window of the Packard a hand written cardboard sign read “I may be slow, but I’m a head a you!“.
Not many had seen the inside of the house, but Chance kidding said D.B.’s old hound dog, Jake, buried his bone in their living room. Three bantam hens and a roaster roamed the back yard, laying eggs in the back seat of the Packard. Mrs. Brown, each morning, would yell at the youngsters, “ You go get them eggs from the Packard so‘s we kin et‘!“ A pen next to the knot holed fence to the alley held a sow pig weighing 300 pounds or more. You could hear her squealing when they slopped her in the evenings. One of the neighbors stated, confidentially to another neighbor, “Molly Brown is the better looking of all the Brown‘s.”

They had lived in Pueblo for ten years, moving from Flipping, Arkansas, in the heart of the Ozarks. Mrs. Brown was a squatty, big boned women, black hair tied in a bun, with a mustachioed upper lip, on a brown wrinkled face. No one had ever seen her crack a smile. She wore 40’s type print dresses, with a well worn apron and tennis shoes with slits in the ends to give her corned toes relief. There were 8 kids ranging from 2 to 18, five boys and three girls. During the summer the younger ones ran around barefoot, in old ragged jeans, and in winter, noses running constantly down to their upper lip.

D.B. was a big man, pants worn two inches above his waist, held up with a shabby black belt and large copper colored belt buckle, pants cuffs two inches above his socks, when he wore socks. He never sported a hat and never combed his messy brown hair, except Sundays when it was slicked down with Rose Pomade, and he and his brood went to the Valley Baptist Church of the Holey Brethren. With his unkempt hair sticking straight up, his owlish brown eyes, and ruddy complexion he looked like an embarrassed hoot owl. His voice was high pitched with a southern nasal twang. He worked on the railroad with Jess, repairing boxcars for the Santa Fe.

One afternoon Chance and I were at his house sitting on the couch watching Bandstand. Two of the youngest Brown boys walked through the front door. They said nothing and sprawled out on the rug in front of the T.V. leaning their heads on their hands, elbows resting on the floor. They watched for what seemed like a long time, when the oldest of the two turned his head towards us and nonchalantly, without a worry said, “Ah house is on far!”
Chance and I sat up on the couch, looked at each other. Alarmed we asked in unison “What did you say?”

As if annoyed by someone who doesn‘t understand , “Ah said, ah house is a far!”

Chance and I rushed next door. We could see smoke billowing up on the opposite side of the their house. We ran full speed through the side-yard gate, and rushed around the corner. D.B. sat in the window of his bedroom his legs inside the burning room, ballooning smoke pouring out on both sides. He held a garden hose in his hand and would shoot water on the fire, then put the hose to his face to clear smoke from his eyes. He saw us coming. “I got’er un’er control boys, far’s ‘bout out,” he yelled.

Across the street a fire engine pulled up and firemen jumped out. They stood there looking at the smoke and sparks flying out around D.B. One fireman pulled a short stogie out of his mouth and yelled, “Ya got it under control over there? We can’t help ya, yer in the county.”

In those days, if your house was on fire, you’d better live within the city. Several blocks of streets on the south end of town were beyond the township and considered to be in the county. So it wouldn’t be beyond reason for a fire truck to pull up to one side of the street and watch as a house burned on the opposite side, not permitted to fight it, as the owner did not pay city tax.
D.B. leaned back too far and fell backwards out of the window onto the ground. He handed me the hose. “Heah, put water on the far!” I stepped up to the window, turned my head away, and shot water into the room. D.B. yelled across to the firemen standing across the street, “Eh, we got it out men. Jus’ smoke now. Ya’al kin go on.”

“Gotta’ stick around. Make sure it don’t spread over to the city side.” the fireman shouted back, then placed the snubbed cigar back to his lips.

I handed the hose to D.B, and the fire out we walked back to Chance’s house. “I saw into his closet an’ hangin’ there was his army uniform,“ I said as we hopped the fence into his yard.

“Was it on fire?”

“Nope, but he wasn’t no lieutenant. There was sergeant stripes‘.”

"Boy,” Chance exclaimed, “I can’t wait for tonight.”

That evening Chance and I couldn’t wait for the Browns to come over We sat around the old galvanized wash tub. Jess had filled it with sand so we could build a fire without burning the bottom out.. It was later than usual around eight when everyone gathered round.. The fire blazed up, throwing red sparks into the night. We sat in old lawn chairs, and moved them occasionally to escape the smoke and the heat of the fire. There was a chill in the air and sitting by the fire your front was burning and your backside was cold. Mrs. Baker had brought out the marshmallows and wire coat hangers to hold over the flames. It was 8:30 before the Browns angled over from next door. They’d brought their chairs and sat around the bonfire.

“Hey, D.B. we caught ya in a big tail. Chuck saw yer uniform. You was a sergeant, not a lieutenant. Boy, you told a big one!” Chance said.

D.B. Brown stared at Chance with a quizzical look. “Ya’all callin’ me a liar?”

“Well, yeah,” Chance said. He could see the hurt cross D.B.’s face. “It was just a story…but we caught ya on it. Dad tells big ones sometimes an’…”
D.B. stood up, grabbed his lawn chair and headed back toward his house, his wife following. Their youngest asked for marsh-mellows to cook.

“His eyes were all watery,” I said.

“OK, everyone in the house, except you boys,” Jess said angrily looking at Chance and me. Mrs. Baker grabbed her chair and went into the house. The Brown’s kids wanted to argue as they hadn’t roasted their marshmallows. Jess pointed at their house and they left, their heads lowered in dejection.

“Now, you guys sit. Listen boys, that was down right mean. You jus’ called a man a liar afore you knew the whole account. The only thing a man has in this life worth anything is his word, and pride. Listen, back in the early forties the Japanese over ran island after island in the pacific. The U.S of A. needed information about logistics and troop strength. MacArthur formed an elite group, the Alamo Scouts. These scouts silently slipped onto islands to find out the enemies intentions. The men were sworn to secrecy, even so after the war. Not many a these men would return… As one leader fell, the next in line would move up and Brownie moved up in rank to Lieutenant. He was shot and bayoneted, but, one a the lucky ones, lived to get home. He was decommissioned as a sergeant, an’ received a load a medals. If’n I remember right, he received the Purple Heart, Silver Star, Bronze Star, Distinguished Service Cross, and Presidential Unit Citation for his part in the rescue of POW’s.” Chance and I waited for his wink, it didn‘t happen. “How do I know it’s true?…I’ve never mentioned it to nobody but Sylvia, as the memory of those times of death and fighting are best not discussed… I was one of those scouts.”

How many times have we judged a person, discovering later they were the opposite of our thoughts? A boy teased for being a slow reader; a published author. A poorly dressed girl; a famous dress designer. An asthmatic as a child becomes President, The boy stuttered, a King. … and a poorly educated man from Flipping Arkansas, a war hero.